Some regions produce their best teas during the period from March to May. So this is a good time to meet the farmers and planters and see them at work.
I have left China for Nepal, which has been producing excellent teas in the past few decades. While here, I am visiting tea plantations in Hile (Kuwapani, Guranse, Jun-Chiyabari) located in the district of Dhankuta in Eastern Nepal, the most prestigious in the country.
You can tell when the tea leaves are ready for harvesting by the colour of the bushes. When the tea plants take on this yellow-green shade it means the new shoots have reached a good size and it is time to get out your basket and start plucking.
Here, you can see the difference in colour between the leaves that have not yet been harvested, in the background, and what remains on the plants after a visit from this Chinese woman, with her agile hands, in the foreground.
Processing Taiping Hou Kui is incredibly labour-intensive. Each leaf, after firing, is hand-rolled lengthwise and placed on a cloth. The leaves are carefully spaced out and then pressed with a small roller, leaving them flattened and larger.
Taiping Hou Kui is harvested for just 25 days a year, generally between 20 April and 15 May. For the rest of the year the tea plant is allowed to grow without having its leaves plucked. This concentrates the harvest on the best season.
Mrs Zha has a pretty plot of land on the edge of lake Taiping. She is very busy during this plucking period. Taiping Hou Kui is one of the most expensive teas in China, and its price can reach thousands of yuan per kilo.
To reach the tea plantations, I am used to walking for hours, or driving a 4×4, sometimes both. I don’t usually get to travel by boat, however. But yesterday, that is exactly what I did. At the moment I am looking for the best green teas in East China’s Anhui province. Among these are the true Taping Hou Kui teas, the only ones worthy of this name. They grow on a mountain that is only accessible by boat.
Here in China, the harvesting of premium teas is in full swing. Some farmers have their own buildings equipped with various machines for processing the tea. Others, like Mr Li, sell their freshly plucked leaves to bigger farmers who have the necessary facilities.
Once harvested, tea spoils quickly. Here, at the Fuding tea market, Mr Li absolutely must find a buyer in the next two hours. With the quality of his leaves, he should have no difficulty, and he gives a big smile for the camera.
Before leaving for China in search of different teas, I have spent most of the past few weeks tasting lots of samples of Darjeelings, receiving up to fifty in one day.
Phuguri, Risheehat, Orange Valley, Gielle, Puttabong, Singbulli, Teesta Valley, North Tukvar, Longview, Thurbo: this year our selection reflects the work of many gardens and represents the best of their production.
This is what the mountains look like where these teas grow, so that while you are enjoying them, you can transport yourself to the mountainside and feel the mists of the Himalayan foothills.
In China, the first tea harvests of the year have begun, and today I am flying to Beijing, then to Huang Shan, the famous Yellow Mountains.
The best pluckings of China green tea take place in April, and Anhui province alone boasts prestigious teas such as Tai Ping Hou Kui, Huang Shan Mao Feng, Huang Shan Mu Dan and Huang Hua Yun Jian, to name just a few.
A kid comes up to me as I walk through Kolkata. He asks me to take his photo. He lives on the street, surviving by collecting rubbish which he sells on for next to nothing. I agree to take his picture and suggest he smiles, and above all removes the plastic covering his face. He doesn’t. He stares intently into the lens. And sniffs the glue in his bag at the same time, incapable of stopping.
Water is quite scarce in Kolkata and people congregate at the public tap to wash their laundry or themselves. There is a friendly atmosphere among the neighbours.
You can see that people still protect their modesty, even though they wash in the street. The man in the foreground getting changed beneath his towel reminds me of the contortions we go through back in this country, after a swim in the sea, as we try to put our underwear back on with one hand.
Here, it is like being at the beach. But without the sea.
